


I miss you like a home

by hollybibble



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Power Play, Spanking, Tenderness, mention of prescription drug abuse, some sex but not much really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:28:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22033336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollybibble/pseuds/hollybibble
Summary: “Now, you know the consequences, darling. Let’s go upstairs.” Henry took Alex’s hand and led him up to their bedroom. Alex followed pliantly, silently, as if in a trance.Alex is a mess. He's overextended, overworked, and resorting to taking his law school classmate's Adderall to manage his workload.Henry knows what he needs. Spoiler alert: it's a spanking.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 13
Kudos: 158





	I miss you like a home

**Author's Note:**

> This went out of my comfort zone, but we all must learn and grow, right?
> 
> Title from my favorite quote in their letters:
> 
> "Tho I long for the actual sunlight contact between us I miss you like a home. Shine back honey & think of me." -Allen Ginsberg

Henry didn’t like what he saw as he entered the brownstone, but he wasn’t surprised. It was too clean, and beyond that something felt generally askew. Alex’s shoes by the door were lined up with painful symmetry, but the air was close and sour. The pressure cooker was dismantled into many gleaming pieces next to the sink, but there was no sign of food eaten or prepared, let alone Alex playing music while he chopped onions and peppers.

“Alex?” Henry called, pulling his suitcase behind him. The Town Car picked him up from the airport, and he had only nodded quickly at Cash, stationed in the foyer. He had been away for almost three weeks, taking over some family duties while Gran discreetly recovered from a heart procedure. It was the longest he and Alex had been apart since moving in together in Brooklyn. And as the meaning of the stale air and gleaming surfaces hit him, Henry knew he had been away too long.

“Alex, I’m home!” he tried again. This time he heard the rustling of Alex padding downstairs. He was in sweatpants, a rumpled tee shirt, and the glasses he only wore at home, and as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he paused. Henry felt something catch in his chest as he noticed the coffee stains on Alex’s shirt and the tension around his eyes. He held out his arms and after a moment’s hesitation, Alex walked into them. 

“Sweetheart,” said Alex hoarsely, clutching him almost painfully as he buried his face where Henry’s neck met his shoulder. “I wasn’t expecting you until tonight.”

“I was able to move the _Hello!_ interview to this morning.” He wrapped his arms around Alex. He could feel a slight protrusion of ribs, a sharpness to the shoulder blades that would be missed by anyone who didn’t know this body so well. Alex’s hair smelled like it did first thing in the morning, like a warm, musky pillow instead of shampoo and that thing he called ‘glossing straightener.’ “I wanted to see you.” He gently detached from Alex’s grip to hold him by the shoulders and get a good look. Alex’s eyes were bloodshot, and he felt tense and jittery in Henry’s hands. “I missed you, love,” he said, and kissed Alex on the forehead.

“What the hell?” said Alex. His voice was scratchy, like he hadn’t spoken in a few days. “Three weeks and all I get is a kiss on the fucking forehead?”

Henry brushed a hand against Alex’s cheek. “Alex. Talk to me. I’ve barely heard from you all week.”

Alex laughed, but it was a hollow, harsh sound. “You know I’m in the middle of midterms. Luna warned me that with law school, the first year they scare you to death, the second year they work you to death, and the third year they bore you to death. But somehow Columbia seems determined to do all three to me in my first semester.”

“Mmm hmm,” nodded Henry soothingly. His hand moved down to Alex’s shoulder, feeling the knots of tension.

“And then my dad needed me in California for the weekend for that campaign rally. And June’s editor gave her 48 hours to turn around the line edits on her memoir so it was all hands on fucking deck.” Now that he had started, Alex was talking quickly, trying to make eye contact with Henry but breaking it frequently to glance behind his ear or at the floor. “So this woman in my Civil Procedure class, Hannah, she gave me some of her Adderall, just to get me through the week.”

“Alex.” Henry’s voice was firm. He knew about Alex stealing Liam’s Adderall in high school, his way of handling the relentless pressure to be Ellen Claremont’s perfect child. His Alex, driving himself to be the ideal First Son, when he was already good enough, just as he was. Alex hadn’t done this in a long time. The pressure must have been just crushing. Henry wanted to kiss him, to promise to fix it all. But that wasn’t what Alex needed from him.

“I know, I know, I swear this will be the last time, but I had so much to do, and I got scared, and you were away, and I didn’t want to bother you while you were dealing with your grandmother…” Alex trailed off under Henry’s stern gaze.

“Alex, love, you know our agreement.” Henry took Alex’s face in both hands, forcing him to meet his eyes. “I’m not even going to ask you the last time you ate anything, or slept for more than an hour or two. You can’t shut me out when you feel overcommitted. And you can’t take pills that your classmates, or any one else, hand you. If you want to go to the doctor and request an evaluation for ADHD, and get a prescription that you take properly, I will support you wholeheartedly. In fact, I will cheer you on. But you will not self-medicate to deal with your problems.”

Alex swallowed hard and nodded. Henry felt Alex’s jittery energy practically vibrating through his hands as he cupped his boyfriend’s hot cheeks.

The only way Henry could soothe him was to completely take him apart. 

“Now, you know the consequences, darling. Let’s go upstairs.” Henry took Alex’s hand and led him up to their bedroom. Alex followed pliantly, silently, as if in a trance.

Henry sat Alex on the bed while he hung up his blazer and rolled up his shirtsleeves, his white button down still surprisingly crisp after the trans-Atlantic flight. He sat next to Alex, took one of Alex’s hands in both of his, and kissed it. 

“I’m going to spank you now,” said Henry firmly. “I’m going to give you a long, hard spanking to remind you to take care of yourself, the way we agreed. You’ve earned this spanking, and I’m going to give it to you.”

Again, Alex only nodded. Henry gently took off his glasses and carefully tucked them away in the nightstand.

Henry’s voice was sterner now, using the authoritative register that had a certain effect on Alex. “Stand up now, love. Let’s get those trousers and pants off. No use doing things by halves.”

Alex stepped out of his sweatpants and underwear with surprising grace and speed. Henry patted his left thigh and helped Alex maneuver into the position, Alex’s legs straddling Henry’s knee while his upper body rested comfortably on the bed, face buried in the pillow. His glorious bottom presented itself enticingly, and his spread thighs provided very inviting glimpses of his between his legs. 

“You need this,” said Henry, stroking the small of Alex’s back and feeling him begin to relax into place. “You need me to teach you a lesson.” And with that, he began. Henry delivered a measured series of smacks, enjoying the crisp sound in the quiet room, and the simultaneous spring and give of Alex’s arse.

Henry had never thought of himself as what Alex rather vulgarly called an “ass man,” until a certain Alex Claremont-Diaz had shaken his so-called ass at him on the dance floor at that fateful Young American’s New Year’s party. He’d always imagined himself as drawn to broad shoulders, or soulful eyes, and while Alex possessed both of those, it was his excellent buttocks that were a special area of, um, interest for Henry. Alex, being Alex, picked up on this and taunted him mercilessly. 

“You flat-assed Brits really go for us juicy Latinos, huh? What’s up with that? Just another form of cultural appropriation? You want to colonize my ass with your royal dick?”

That had been the first time. Henry wrestled Alex onto the bed, and Alex pushed back more than usual, with a set to his jaw and a daring gleam in his eye. Finally, Henry forced Alex over his lap, pulling down his pants and laying into his bottom without preliminaries, slapping and smacking over and over as he watched the skin redden and listened to Alex’s wonderful yelps and moans as he squirmed and then melted in his lap. Afterwards, when they lay naked and panting and still electric, Alex weakly groaned, “Yet another thing you’re amazing at,” and a new feeling of pride bloomed in Henry’s chest. 

Now, here in their bedroom, Henry picked up the pace slightly but still kept his rhythm unpredictable. He was in charge. This was a different sort of spanking than the first, one that Henry had come to realize that Alex needed sometimes. Alex pushed himself too hard, depleted all his resources, and then tried to solve everything without asking for help. It was only draped over Henry’s lap, fighting through his need to manage everyone and everything, as Henry meticulously reddened every corner of his bottom, that Alex could finally give up control.

“It’s a pity your American Montessori schools spend so much time playing with wooden blocks and homemade playdough,” said Henry dryly as he continued to spank. “It leads to many a young man in desperate need of a smacked bottom.” Alex moaned slightly, and Henry took this as a signal to spend some time thoroughly reddening Alex’s tender sit spot. 

Henry paused to rub Alex’s pink buttocks. Alex gave a little hiss as he ground himself against Henry’s thigh, and was rewarded with a pinch to the tender flesh. “No, my dear, this little massage is not an invitation to your lascivious ways. It’s merely to relax the blood vessels so I can spank you longer and harder without bruising. Your real spanking is about to begin.”

With the warm up concluded, Henry got to work in earnest. He rested his left hand on Alex’s hip, holding him in place and framing his workspace while his right hand crashed down unrelentingly. He focused on the right buttock until he felt Alex bucking underneath him, then changed to the left. He moved down to the sensitive skin at the top of the thighs, turning them the same pink as the rest. Alex’s skin was tawny and never burned in the sun, but it reddened beautifully under Henry’s careful touch.

Henry rubbed between Alex’s shoulder blades, a quick check in, to say _Are you okay_ , and _I’m giving you what I know you need_. In response Alex turned his face to the side, no longer buried in the pillow. Flushed cheeks, lips bitten red, the beginnings of tears in his endless eyelashes, but mostly a peaceful surrender. Henry took a moment to admire his work, both the evenly colored bottom and the normally combative Alex stretched over his lap, trusting him absolutely.

“Next time, I’ll get the wooden hairbrush out. How would you like that? Give you an old-fashioned bare bottom hairbrushing until you beg me to stop.” Henry could see Alex was reaching his limit. Stern words would get him to that final place with just a few more smacks. As he expected, Alex made a noise between a squeal and a groan.

Henry slowed down for the final moments, lingering over each slap, savoring the heat radiating off of Alex, how he now twitched at the lightest touch. Henry alternated lightly dragging his fingernails over the tender skin with a few sharp smacks.

“You’re doing so well,” he murmured soothingly, feeling Alex’s body release all its remaining tension. “You look so beautiful over my knee. You’re so red and hot now, love. We’re almost done.”

Henry finished, as he always did, with five of his hardest, all intensely focused on the same few inches. Alex’s feet kicked helplessly, and he groaned from the back of his throat, saying, “Henry” and “please stop” and “please don’t stop” and “thank you” all together in one shattering sound. 

Henry quickly grabbed the lotion from the nightstand and rubbed a soothing squeeze onto Alex’s fiery arse. Another time he might have lingered, letting his hand trail underneath, knowing he would quickly have Alex panting and writhing in a new way. Today, he gave a final, gentle pat and scooped Alex into his lap.

Alex was limp and heavy. Henry pushed Alex’s sweaty hair off his forehead and settled Alex’s head onto his own shoulder. “All better, love?”

Alex nodded with a small sob, and then he looked up at Henry with a dazzling but exhausted smile. Henry’s heart swelled with tenderness. 

“I’m tucking you into bed now. You’re going to have a proper sleep. And we’re going to make a plan to deal with everything in the morning.” Henry maneuvered Alex into bed, pulling up the covers around him.

“Three weeks away and all I get is one hell of a spanking,” whined Alex sleepily. 

Henry smiled and gave him a quick kiss. Truth be told his mind was already turning to a long shower where he could revisit his favorite of Alex’s gasps and kicks, as well as a do-over reunion in the morning.

“Sleep now,” Henry said, tracing his thumb against Alex’s check one last time. “I love you.”

“Me, too,” sighed Alex happily, closing his eyes. “I’m so glad you’re home, baby.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are treasured!


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